New Delhi: More than 60 ecologists, sociologists, researchers and writers have written to Union Environment Minister Bhupender Yadav to reconsider the slew of infrastructure projects that his government is about to implement on the Great Nicobar Island.In a rebuttal to Yadav’s recent article about the need for the project, the experts, including former bureaucrats, have called it “unwarranted and irresponsible” of the minister to portray a commercial venture as a defence project.The projects on the island – which ecologists, environmentalists and even opposition parties have repeatedly raised numerous concerns about – include an international transshipment terminal, a township, a greenfield airport and a power plant. The cost of these projects is currently estimated at Rs 81,000 crores.On September 12, The Hindu published “A project of a strategic and national importance”, a piece in which Yadav defended his government’s stand on the Great Nicobar projects, arguing, among other things, that they had ‘passed scrutiny’ at many levels and that the 130.75 square kilometers of forest area that will have to be diverted for it was “only approximately 1.82% of the total forest area” of the Andaman and Nicobar Islands.Why national interest?Addressing specific aspects of Yadav’s article, the group of more than 60 ecologists, sociologists, researchers, writers and former bureaucrats express in the open letter dated October 27 their grave concerns about the projects. The letter raises questions the projects and also calls out some half-truths in the article.The signatories of the letter include scholar and writer Ramachandra Guha, researchers who have worked on the islands such as Manish Chandi (a former member of the Research Advisory Board at the Andaman Nicobar Tribal Training and Research Institute) and Elrika D’Souza, former director of the Bombay Natural History Society Asad Rahmani, and Padma Shri awardee herpetologist Romulus Whitaker.In a direct rebuttal to the environment minister, the group writes that the dual-use military-cum-civilian airport, which will take up just about 5% of the total project area, was the only component of the projects that fell under the category of “national security”. The remaining 160 square kilometres consist of 130 sq km of forest land, they say.Also read: India Needs a Clear National Security Strategy—Now More Than Ever“It is disingenuous to label what is essentially a commercial project as a strategic one and invoke national security whenever questions on the project are raised. Our questions are in the interest of our country, of Great Nicobar Island (GNI), the communities living there (settled and indigenous), and of a fruitful and progressive developmental model that India can showcase to the rest of the world,” their letter reads.The government has often denied information pertaining to the project, even when sought through the Right to Information Act, citing national security, among other reasons.Around 8,000 people – both indigenous tribes and settlers – live on the Great Nicobar Island but what constitutes ‘development’ differs significantly across these sociocultural groups, “and cannot be homogenised into a top-down model insensitive to ground realities; this is a significant, yet overlooked, socio-economic reality,” the letter notes.Far-from-truthsYadav had written that the projects would take up only 1.82% of forest area in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, but while this figure was “mathematically accurate”, it also meant that 15% of the entire forest area in the Great Nicobar Island would be diverted, say the experts.It is important to consider this claim of the minister at the level of these islands, the signatories to the letter point out. They argue that it is not “scientifically and ecologically accurate to combine the forest areas” of the Andaman and Nicobar groups of islands. They belong to two different biodiversity hotspots: the Andaman islands fall under the Indo-Burma Biodiversity Hotspot and the Nicobar group of islands under the Sunda Biodiversity Hotspot.Therefore, these islands have “vastly different geological features and species assemblages”.“Being the largest island in the Nicobar group, the contiguous forest area in GNI holds unimaginable bio-ecological significance (which is why it is part of UNESCO’s Man and Biosphere Program), and the diversion has to be measured against its singular landmass. The diverted forest includes about a million rainforest trees and is our country’s last remaining old-growth forest,” they write.The letter also says that Yadav’s statement that policies for indigenous tribes had been fully respected and implemented was “far from true”. It highlights that the rights accorded to the indigenous communities of the island (the Shompen and Great Nicobarese indigenous tribes live here), under the Forest Rights Act, have been violated, and that several provisions in the Andaman and Nicobar Islands (Protection of Aboriginal Tribes) Regulation of 1956 have been “wholly ignored in the rush to grant clearances to the project”.Also read: Who Is the Great Nicobar ‘Holistic Development’ Project Really For?“The MoEFCC [Union environment ministry] and the island administration have turned a blind eye to the concerns regarding the impact on the Shompen and the Great Nicobarese, as raised by various entities right from the time this project was conceived,” the experts write.Members of the Nicobarese Tribal Council have been writing to the local administration before Environmental Clearance was granted to the projects. They continue to express disagreement with their lands being designated as project area without their consent, the letter says. As recently as July 2025, comments by members of the Tribal Council were omitted from the proceedings of the public hearing for the Social Impact Assessment of the trunk road infrastructure project, it says. How has the ministry addressed these concerns, they ask.Shielded from scientific scrutiny, scientists pressuredSeveral reports claimed to have been put together by government institutes and teams, such as the Zoological Survey of India, Botanical Survey of India and Wildlife Institute of India, have not been uploaded on the Union environment ministry’s public access portal, PARIVESH, the researchers write. This essentially shields the project from “scientific scrutiny and public review”, they add.Moreover, scientists from these same government institutes are also part of the biodiversity monitoring committee.“It does not inspire confidence when the very institutions that have prepared management plans will be monitoring their implementation. There is a glaring conflict of interest… The insistence on engaging the same institutions that fall under the ministry in every aspect of this project does not instill confidence but raises questions,” their letter says.The experts and concerned citizens even write that some scientists in these government institutions have said that they were pressured to prepare reports in favour of the project. Such “active attempts at suppressing facts and information that should be public do nothing but create mistrust among citizens”, they write, asking that the wildlife management plans to mitigate the project’s impact – prepared at a cost of Rs 2,220.41 crores of taxpayer money – be made public “for a thorough and impartial peer review”.The letter also asks Yadav why his ministry never addressed the concerns raised by scientists, organisations, former bureaucrats and affected community members regarding the project’s impact.“When these collective concerns, expressed by various groups and individuals through all possible mediums of engagement, have gone unaddressed, and there is little information being made available in the public domain, how do you expect us to believe anything that the government says about this project,” the group asks in its letter.They add that had the government listened to the concerns raised by scientists familiar with the region, the “ongoing devastation caused by the push for infrastructure projects and ‘development’ in the northern part of the country would not have led to such massive loss of life and property”.“Sir, we urge you to set aside political considerations, focus on the grave and irreversible negative implications of the proposed project, and take serious note of the need to reconsider it,” the signatories urge Yadav.